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Overview
Mike Carter and his girlfriend Helen, along with their friends Alex and Kay, travel to a remote loch side cottage for a post-graduation holiday. But their celebrations are short-lived when they hit and kill a stag on the road. Alex s sister Meggie awaits them in the cottage, adding to the tension when her dog, Oscar, goes missing. Mike becomes haunted by a disturbing presence in the cottage, and is hunted by threatening figures in the highland fog. Reeling from a shock revelation, Mike begins to lose his grip on his sanity. As the dark secrets of the past conspire to destroy the bonds of friendship, Mike must uncover the terrifying truth dwelling within the walls of Hearthstone Cottage.
FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781787583252 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Flame Tree Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/24/2019 |
| Series: | Fiction Without Frontiers |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Interviews
What is the book about?
Mike and his friends travel to the Scottish Highlands to celebrate their graduation at a holiday cottage. En-route, they hit and kill a stag and write off their car. Tensions build as Mike becomes plagued by terrifying nightmares and unwelcome visitors. Is Mike genuinely losing his mind, or is the cottage actually a place of dark and threatening power?
What are the underlying themes?
I tend to write about damaged people who find themselves in potentially damaging situations. The book examines the impact of modern life upon ancient spaces and old-world traditions, and how man’s arrogant dominance over the landscape can sometimes be his undoing. There are also maggots. Lots of maggots.
Did you base your characters on anyone you knew?
The characters are entirely fictitious, but do possess qualities I observe in people around me, and both the light and darkness I think we all possess, beneath the masks we tend to wear in public.
Who or what influenced you most in the writing of the book?
I was most influenced by the memory of spaces and their atmospheres, particularly visits to ancient sites such as West Kennet Long Barrow, the Rollright Stones, and Newgrange. The story began in a series of conversations with my friend, and the Director of Photography on my film projects, Alan Stewart, to whom the book is dedicated with thanks.
Is there any advice you can give someone starting to write?
However crazy your idea might seem, trust me, someone else has always gone crazier. Don’t hold back, just throw it all down and you can always rein it later. Invest in a robust coffee making machine, you’ll need it. Oh, and switch your internet connection off until you are ready to emerge from your writing session.
Where did you write?
I am incredibly lucky to live in a wonky old cottage that dates back to the fifteenth century, and I channelled every creaking wooden beam, every whisper of wind in the chimney, and every nocturnal tap at the window pane, into this book. I also wrote and edited on trains, on planes, at the British Library in London, and a variety of coffee shops.
Did you write in silence, or to any particular music?
I tend to write to music, especially film scores, and build playlists for particular projects so that I can ‘fast track’ back into them. This book was helped along by Christopher Young’s beautiful Hellraiser scores, and various works by Tangerine Dream including Force Majeure and White Eagle.
Did you find it hard to write? Or harder to edit your own work?
I find it easier to edit than to write. There’s this incredibly dark place in a novel, somewhere between the 40-60 thousand word mark, where you can lose the will to live if you’re not careful. Luckily I enjoy a challenge, or I would have jacked it in years ago. Endings are glorious, I enjoy testing the thesis and seeing if, and how, the story resolves, and how that might differ from the planned story outline. Writing, just like reading, is an absolute joy and a total pain in the arse all at once. I love it.
What was it like to be edited by someone else?
It is at turns surprising, illuminating and life affirming to have someone take the time and care to help make your work the very best that it can be. I am blessed to have worked with Don D’Auria, one of the best editors in the business, and a total gentleman through-and-through.
What are you writing now?
I have a horror film screenplay on the go, and am outlining the characters and storylines for my next novel. I am also researching my PhD, which examines the themes in my novels.